Engineers discuss saltwater problems

As Georgia inches toward a unified water policy, there is a lot of talk about how to stop saltwater from creeping into in the groundwater.

But it's hard to tell who's listening.

A panel of experts, some from as far away as California and The Netherlands, served up a smorgasbord of solutions used by other communities to stop saltwater intrusion at a session in Savannah Tuesday.

But few from the 24 coastal counties that face the issue some of them now under a groundwater withdrawal limit were at day one of the two-day session to listen even though the region has hit a critical point.

When the state imposed its temporary groundwater management plan, 36 million gallons of groundwater a day were set aside for growth. That amount of water is now gone allocated away through permits to agriculture, industry and municipalities, said Bill Frechette of the Environmental Protection Division's water resources management program.

"It's an issue facing all of south Georgia," said Bruce Bazemore, a representative of U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga.

Few elected officials attended the session and Kingston was one of the few who sent stand-ins. He called Tuesday's meeting a brainstorming session for experts that should produce ideas that elected policy makers can review and perhaps adopt later.

The solutions ranged from the highly technical to the relatively simple, but all had extensive data collection and public input in common.

Orange County, Calif., uses a line of injection wells replenished with treated wastewater to keep saltwater intrusion out of its limited aquifer, said Roy Herndon, a hydro-geologist.

Simply relocating wells and starting a water conservation problem was enough to save Guam's aquifer and to allow for the growth of a substantial tourist economy, said Jim Goodrich, a California water expert who studied water issues on Guam.

Many solutions offered up may not be appropriate for Georgia, said William McLemore, Georgia's state geologist. But they are a starting point for discussion, he said.

The session was part of the state's Sound Science Initiative, a multi-year program to use research to identify issues facing Georgia's supply of drinkable groundwater.

Patty McIntosh, coastal representative for the Georgia Conservancy and a Sound Science adviser, lamented that most of the solutions offered Tuesday were based on intense technology and did little to settle the question of Georgia's water as a public resource or market commodity.

Today, the panel members will continue to meet in the trade center and evaluate the proposed solutions for their viability in Georgia. Later, the group will make its report available to anyone who wants it.

Environmental issues reporter Gail Krueger can be reached at 652-0331 or at gkrueger@savannahnow.com.